In early July of 2007, I received an email from a woman named Devorah in Switzerland, asking me if I would do a phone healing session with her. She had read about me in a book entitled Limitless Mind, written by my former partner, physicist and psychic researcher Russell Targ. Russell wrote that book in the months following the death of his daughter, physician Elisabeth Targ. He dedicated the book to his daughter Elisabeth, including in it much about Elisabeth’s life and healing work and research, as well as his loving memories of her beauty and brilliance and psychic abilities.
I did a phone healing interaction with the Swiss woman named Devorah, who had told me that she was only 38 years old, and that she had asthma and difficulty breathing. I was thinking that she was casually wondering what phone healing was all about, as it is quite an unusual and irrational process, even for me. After our session, I knew that her experience was not nearly as deep and powerful as others had experienced. So, we scheduled a second session for the next day for 9:30 in the morning my time, as her time was many hours ahead.
After about 20 minutes had elapsed in our second session together, I had become deeply immersed in the state of “being in the light” that occurs to me during healing interactions. From the depths of my expansive state I was shocked to hear coming from inside me the distinctive voice of the deceased Dr. Elisabeth Targ, who, by the time of her death, had become my very close friend. Since Elisabeth’s death in 2002, I had sometimes sensed her presence and advice and assistance during a few of my healing sessions, but this unusual sense had not occurred to me for nearly a year.
But right then, as I was talking by phone to Devorah on the other side of the globe, I also began to feel Elisabeth’s intense loving signature vibrations envelop me in radiating heat and overwhelming bliss, and this pulsating communication from Elisabeth always pleasantly surprises me. Of course, I’m never absolutely certain that these vibrations are due to my deceased physician friend’s continued existence and communication to me. What makes the communications seem to come so compellingly from her is that I am always so surprised to hear her distinctive voice start up inside my head giving me definite instructions about what I should say or do, in her particular style of voice inflection and with her dry sense of humor.
Now, with Devorah on the phone, I was startled when Elisabeth told me she wanted me to relay a message to the woman. Elisabeth said to tell the woman that she should not be afraid of dying, and that death itself is not painful. She told me to tell Devorah that she would soon be free of her body, and that she would not be alone when it happened, as Elisabeth would be with her.
I wondered if I were imagining Elisabeth’s vibrating presence, or making up the idea that she was giving me directions. I prefer not to share with others these inner communications or possible hallucinations that I sometimes think I receive from dead spirits. I myself don’t know why or how or if they really happen. I really did not want to mention to Devorah any of these notions coming from the ostensible Elisabeth. “After all, Devorah is young,” I thought to myself, “and all this stuff about death has nothing to do with her concerns. She just called me out of curiosity.” But Elisabeth was adamant in her characteristic way. She insisted, “Tell her now, Jane! Tell her what I told you to tell her.”
I began to consider just how I might broach the delicate subject to this young woman that I sensed the presence of my deceased soul-daughter, a physician who had told me before she died that she was not finished with being a healer. But before I had a chance to utter anything, Devorah exclaimed with surprise that she thought she sensed the presence of Elisabeth Targ, the daughter of Russell Targ about whom she had read, standing beside her as she lay in bed.
It took me a few seconds to recover from my shock. Then I nonchalantly told her that I also sensed Elisabeth’s presence. She asked with surprise, “You do?” And I assured her, “Yes, I do.” “Do you see her?” Devorah asked. “No,” I said, “I hear her and feel her vibing me up.”
I was so relieved to be off the hook, now that Devorah had brought up this subject! I tentatively forged ahead and related Elisabeth’s message to her, thinking that the content was hypothetical and for her benefit sometime far off in the future. I hadn’t thought the woman was close to dying. So much for my intuition. (“Remember never to make assumptions, Jane.”)
I casually asked Devorah to tell me again what her health condition was, and it was then that she told me that her pain had been very bad in the past days, and that she was very, very weak, and that she could barely get a breath. (“Why couldn’t I have at least heard that?”) Then she really shocked me by saying that she thought she might die that very night, and that she really hoped to die and be out of pain soon, but she was afraid. She told me that her life had been very short, and that she was surprised to be dying so soon and so young.
Just then, she yelped, “Oh!”
“What? What’s wrong?” I thought she might be dying right then! Devorah exclaimed that a book from a bookcase on the far side of her bedroom had moved itself forward right off the shelf and had fallen to the floor, though the woman herself had not moved, and there was no one else in the house.
“Do you think Elisabeth did it?” she asked. “Yes,” I said.
We both felt that Elisabeth had moved the book, but I knew it was important to find out about its title and contents. Devorah said that she was unable to get out of bed, but that when someone next came into the room, she would ask the person to retrieve the book, and Devorah would find out. I then told Devorah that I loved her, for I knew now that it was likely that I might not talk to her again.
The next morning after awakening I opened my email and was relieved to find a letter from Devorah reporting that the book was titled, “Healing Childhood Trauma.”
In the years before her death, Elisabeth Targ had specialized as a psychiatrist in working with women who had been sexually abused as children. At her memorial service, some of her clients had raved about how dedicated and skillful Elisabeth had been at helping them to heal. I emailed back to Devorah asking, “What does the book say?” Some hours later she responded by email, “It’s about love, and forgiveness, so you can move on with your life.”
I emailed back, “Yes, that’s Elisabeth’s message. It’s all about loving.” And I again wrote to Devorah that I loved her, and that I wished her Godspeed if I did not hear from her again.
The next morning I opened my email to find a short note from Devorah, written many hours before, shortly after our last communication. She said that she was quite weak and tired, and that this would be her last communication to me. She said she sensed Elisabeth’s presence beside her, and that she felt comforted and at ease.
I never heard from Devorah again.